For Mr. Paterson, austerity, sort of

Perhaps even for Governor Paterson’s press office, the challenge of trying to justify raises for its own staff while the governor is ordering furloughs and calling on the rest of the state work force to share the pain of a fiscal crisis was just too much of a stretch.

Whatever the reason, the press office, some of whose members were looking at raises of $10,000, said the recipients voluntarily gave them up on Wednesday, hours after they became public. Smart move.

But the governor and those who write his press releases still will have to make sense for the rest of New York about how, at a time when Mr. Paterson is talking about holding the line on state salaries, he can agree to increases for thousands of state workers.

How did that happen? Even without across-the-board raises, most state workers, unionized or not, get pay increases every year for the first six years of their careers. These increases, often called steps, represent raises of about 3 or 5 percent. Many state workers also receive longevity increases, ranging from $750 to $1,500, after five and 10 years at the top of their grade.

The governor has decided to give the step and longevity increases to about 4,500 management and confidential employees, white collar workers who are not in a union. It will cost the state about $12 million. The reasoning is that these employees agreed to give up their raises and step increases last year, and their raises this year as well, in exchange for an assurance of no layoffs. But with unionized workers getting all their raises, step increases and longevity payments last year and expected to get them all again this year, the budget division says there was a growing pay disparity and a question of fairness.

Fair enough, perhaps, if the state work force existed in a vacuum. But its pay comes from taxpayers, not just the 200,000 or so who work for state government, but the roughly 6.9 million people who work in the private sector. For many of them, the Great Recession has meant no raises. And in the private world, no raises usually means no extra money.

The problem here isn’t just state spending; it’s Mr. Paterson’s credibility, and that of state government. A governor who talks about “shared sacrifice” starts to lose the high ground when he tries to hand out raises in his own office while demanding unions forego pay hikes. A government that struggling New Yorkers are expected to believe shares their pain hardly says “we’re in this together” when thousands of state workers get increases that most other people could only hope for, no matter what you call them.